Return to Soha

SO I did the series of Soha posts earlier. A life sketch improved in the studio from a iPhone snap. The result was a burnt sienna under painter that was okay for painting over. The problem was that in fifty year of painting I'd never done that before. Oh well. So I printed the photon canvas from my epson printer. Put it un a drawer and forgot about it. I had a complex painting ready to go on the easel . I didn't want to be hung up for a week so I started putzing around an d found the print.. I taped it to a board and painted it. It's not done but I'm gonna sit on for  couple of days to see if I can find any more boo boos. I like it but I have to give most of the credit to the model Soha.

A little of me

I thought I'd try my hand at smalls a while ago. At 4 x 6 this is about as small as I can get with this type of image. Back when I was doing a lot of illustrations for text book in Boston I did a lot of teeny tiny heads in pen and ink. Some with just a few pen scratches. The most important thing I had to represent was the ethnicity of the pen scratches. I used MGraham walnut oil based paints on this and good sized brushes. Not giant not small. Good size. It went quickly got pinned on the wall and forgotten. Here it is no longer forgotten.

A guy name Denis

I've finished the portrait. I took about a week and a few false finishes but it's done!

Bill Oil on linen 11 x 14

It was done for the now annual portrait swap challenge on the DMP forum. A group of realist painters and want to be painters. Beginning painters to very accomplished painters from around the globe. This is Denis who is from Australia. He will be painting a portrait of me. When they are dried and safe to ship we will swap the painting by mail. It's a novel but not uncommon thing. Last year I did a portrait of Bill. A woodcarver from Las Vegas.

It's a funny thing to do a painting of someone you don't know and to get a painting back from them. All of a sudden you know them, 

A good weekend all in all

Yesterday the Wayne County Arts Alliance held the annual art auction fund raiser. It was a success. It was held in the Dorflinger Glass factory space in White Millls, PA. I'm happy to say that my painting of a Beach Lake Bakery Rustic Loaf was the first painting sold. That is if you don't count my wife's selection of my friend Ianni's painting that was really first.  We also bought two other paintings that we like very much. All tolled we gave the WCAA $1350 in donations and value. 

We also went to the Metropolitan Museum to see the Cubism show on the last day of the members preview. It was mobbed but what a great exhibit. Simply put it show how the heavyweights, Picasso and Braque developed and evolved the style what so many other have emulated. It also focused on Leger and Gris. Two of the better practitioners. Great great exhibit. 

To see that show we had to leave early to drive to the city about 120 miles. It was a beautiful ride. the light was just grand. We got to eat in the members only dining room not as pricy as one might think and way better than Honesdale's best. Sorry. The ride home was equally splendid as the sun set over the Borscht Belt of the Catskills. Oh and I can't forget I all but finished a portrait on Saturday morning.

Oh yes I now have  full sized giclee prints on canvas of the loaf available for $125.

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A Guy Named Denis  12 x 18 Oil on linen

This is a painting done for the annual portrait swap on the Draw Mix Paint forum. A loose group of artists from around the country and globe who share an interest in realistic painting. This is Denis who is from Australia. He is doing a painting of me from an image that I selected and sent to hime. There were about 12 participant that so far have produced some stunning painting. When the painting are dry we swap our paintings. Great fun.

Drawing with the brush

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1973 Beacon Hill, Boston

This week i decided to retire my charcoals and pastels for a while in favor of the brush. I've been trying to figure out how to make  my life drawings more expressive and at the same time begin to add color. It's been a very long time sine I painted from life. In fact the painting is hanging in my studio. 1973. 

That was awhile ago. 

A goal of mine since i started drawing from life again was to be more natural in gesture. To have a more immediate feel to the markings. I believe that drawing is a physical activity. You probably don't burn many calories at it but it take all the body to express the moment.

By working with simple cheap materials, canvas paper, laid finish printing paper, bristle bond and painting with a limited color set of oil paints Ive opened up my drawing style. There's something about the brush. Standing. the speed that it offers. It's a great tool. This is a great exercise for developing brush control and technique.

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Milanville PA 

So, here are a few pieces I did this week painting at Johan Sellenraad's studio and Ianni's studio. I have to thank that them and the other artists in the groups for letting me struggle to this point. Don't let me forget the models.

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Milanville PA

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Milanville PA

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Honesdale PA

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Honesdale PA

New Giclee Print available

End of Day Pine Point

Boats dance at anchor to the music of an outgoing tide. While the last of the evening light kisses the harbor.

I just made this painting available in a Giclee reproduction print.  The reproduction is the same size as the original painting. Printed on archival media with archival inks the print should stand up to moderate daylight for years.   

Original painting 20 x 10 oil on linen

Giclee reproduction 20 x 10 on canvas varnished

CLICK HERE for purchasing information

Giclees are printed on demand please allow 2 weeks for shipping and handling.

Am I losing my mind?

Last week Ianni challenged me to do an abstract painting. I thought for a second and gladly accepted. I occasionally do little abstract sketches on my iPhone. Little finger paintings. This is based on one of those little finger painting. I was a lot of fun and most certainly hard to do. I can't say it's totally finished but may be. There are certainly typographic influences to it yet other things I can't pin point. It's all about edges bumping and interjecting and whats on top. Sort of an internal competition in the space.

It was great fun to do. It was grand to be doing non-representational art again. And a challenge to manage the acrylics.

Soha standing

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Soha Standing oil sketch on linen roughly 20x24

For the second week I attempted an oil sketch. Soha was the model again. This is about 2 hours of work. The proportions and placement are good..ish. I have an iPhone photo that will use to tighten this pose up and hopefully add some color. The paint is applied using OMS (orderless solvent). It show stay open for a few days so I can adjust tones and shapes fairly easily. I'll let the thing go almost dry before adding the color sparingly. This intended as a sketch after all.

This life drawing thing is so important for me. Though it will be finished from a photo I know how the parts sit in space. There is an immediacy that forces decisions and a bit bolder approach.

The second thing I'm going to invent is a camera that takes an image from every point of view at once and lights each perfectly. That is of course after I invent the worm hole from Millanville to Honesdale.

Added some color in the studio using iPhone photo as reference. A nice sketch for a short time... for me at least..

Soha

This is a first at least since the 60s and art school. This is a brush drawing in burnt sienna oil paint. Oil and solvent. It was done starting last Sunday at Johan's Sunday 3 hour one pose drawing session. The model is an Egyptian art student spending some time here in the Catskills. I had an sketch after that and was going to let it lay. I had taken a shot with my phone just in case I might want to finish it in the studio. On Tuesday things were slow and I printed out a biggish print and continued with the sketch. I've spent about another hour and a half over 2 days and I'm happy with it overall. 

I don't know where I was going with this when I started. It was a completely different approach for me. My initial sketch was pretty accurate in proportions so it didn't take a lot to 'finish' it. It it's real finished.

Once it drys hard i might quickly paint over it in color. But not before I get a good scan of it.

the initial sketch

A little touch of home

After a pleasant vacation on the rocky shores of Maine eating lobstahs and oystahs its back to the Upper Delaware valley. Back to the board and easel. I made a few vain attempts at 'plein air' painting I'm glad to be back at my easel. 

We went to Rockland Maine and saw Colin Page's show (as hyped previously). I'm still seeing his beautiful  paintings in my head. A plein air painter by the way.  We walked the Boothbay Botanical Gardens which were gorgeous. But the most fun for me though was crawling around on the rocks shooting with my camera. I was lucky to capture some classic and some dramatic scenes. I now can fake a wave building and crashing in my warm dry studio.

Anyway here I am. The first thing I did was this color sketch of the Delaware River which is just about 800 feet from my house at the bottom of our road. There's a spot just as you start up the rise on River Road across from Bill's chickens that offers up this little scene. The river winding its way up to Skinners falls. Not really a falls  but a ledge that creates a chute that I no longer want to navigate. The time of year, angle of the sun height and color of the water and number of rafters affect the picture. I've been stopping and looking at this for years. I'e even photographed it in magic light.  I could never get it. I decided that I'd better give up the 'idea' of the perfect moment and just do it. Like I said I'm no outdoor painter so I did this quick sketch from a photo and I like it. As I painted it I imaging how a series of this scene in different conditions would be fun and a great study. So here we are Eel Weir number 1.

Just hyping a great painter. Colin Page

I'm up here in Maine and went to see a solo show of an artist I met about 10 years ago. He was good the now he's great. The show is at Dowling and Walsh galleries in Rockland Maine. 

http://www.dowlingwalsh.com/represented-artists/colin-page/

Colin truly paints with light. I want to know where he buys it. 

Jabba the Rock

This rock stands at the end of the trail to Whitehead on Monhegan Island, ME. Not quite finished yet but in the next couple of days, maybe. 

This is the most complicated painting I've attempted in a very long time. I love some parts of it and almost hate others. Only time will tell. The rock sort of looks like Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars. I painted this with thinned oils using Mark Carders medium formula (minus the clove). I'm happy with the technique. The exposure of the photo is a little soft. When it's done and oiled I'll shoot a better one.

Free Bread... Finished

I got it finished. I like it but would like to spend more time to give it a polish. But hey. 

Hopefully someone will like this one and WCAA can make a few bucks from it. I learned a bit from doing this about working with thin paint. I learned how wild it must be inside a loaf of bread while everything is expanding and exploding all over the place. Sort of like the beginning of the universe.

If you get the chance come the the WCAA auction in September at Main and Basin. I'll be posting date and time later on.

Free Bread. A Beach Lake Bakery Rustic Loaf

I've been working on a couple of paintings over the past 2 weeks. This one and a landscape that isn't ready for public viewing yet. This piece, Free Bread, is for a Wayne County Arts Alliance fund raiser. An auction taking place in September. I had to get it done to dry so I Can hand it in next week. We're going to Maine at the end of the month and I wanted this out of the way. Anyway...

About 25 to 30 of the WCAA will be submitting works on the theme of texture. the only limitations are it has to be 16 x 20 and hang on a wall. So this meets those guidelines. It took about 4 days overall spread out over a week. Getting the bread, photographing, printing full size, mixing intermediate colors then painting which took about 10 hours so far. When it's dry I'll glaze some and finish the foreground. I like this painting. I wasn't intimidating and was as always a great study in mixing complementaries. There are a couple of simple compositional considerations working here but nothing fancy.

I was a little stressful what with the time crunch but that feeling went away when I decided I liked it. Just like the bread. BLB Rustic loaf is out of this world. Lisa Woods only makes her breads and pastries for the public on the weekend. The bakery is off on a country road. Lucky for us we live only about 3 miles away on an even more country country road. 

This is an iPhone shot. When it's done I'll make a full frame of it and put it up.